A bust of revolutionary communist leader Ho Chi Minh is seen at rear as U.S. President George W. Bush smiles before the start of his meeting with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet, not pictured, at the presidential palace in Hanoi, Vietnam, Friday, Nov. 17, 2006. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) less

A bust of revolutionary communist leader Ho Chi Minh is seen at rear as U.S. President George W. Bush smiles before the start of his meeting with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet, not pictured, at the ... more

Photo: CHARLES DHARAPAK

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U.S. President George W. Bush, left, toasts with Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet at the International Convention Center in Hanoi Friday, Nov.17, 2006. Bush, who is in Hanoi for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, is also making a state visit to Vietnam. (AP Photo/Reinhard Krause, Pool) less

U.S. President George W. Bush, left, toasts with Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet at the International Convention Center in Hanoi Friday, Nov.17, 2006. Bush, who is in Hanoi for the Asia Pacific Economic ... more

U.S. President George W. Bush is escorted by Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet as he reviews an honor guard during a welcome cermeony at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, Friday, Nov. 17, 2006. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) less

U.S. President George W. Bush is escorted by Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet as he reviews an honor guard during a welcome cermeony at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, Friday, Nov. 17, 2006. (AP ... more

Photo: GERALD HERBERT

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Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet (L) and U.S. first lady Laura Bush chat during a dinner at the International Convention Center in Hanoi Friday, Nov. 17, 2006. U.S. President George W. Bush and the first lady, who are in Hanoi for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, are also making a state visit to Vietnam. (AP Photo/Reinhard Krause, Pool) less

Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet (L) and U.S. first lady Laura Bush chat during a dinner at the International Convention Center in Hanoi Friday, Nov. 17, 2006. U.S. President George W. Bush and the first ... more

Photo: REINHARD KRAUSE

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Bush embraces Vietnam, calls it a lesson for Iraq

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2006-11-18 04:00:00 PDT Hanoi -- Amid powerful reminders of an unpopular war that bedeviled his predecessors, President Bush landed in Vietnam on Friday, embracing the former U.S. enemy as a symbol of progress and insisting that its experience holds an important lesson for the unpopular war in Iraq.

On a day when he greeted Communist leaders beneath a bronze bust of North Vietnamese wartime leader Ho Chi Minh and passed the spot where Sen. John McCain was pulled from a lake after his warplane was shot down, Bush said it was "amazing" to be in a country that so tormented the United States three decades ago.

Asked what lessons the war in Vietnam offered for the war in Iraq, Bush's response suggested the need for patience and determination -- a nod toward the U.S. decision to abandon Vietnam after a protracted and unsuccessful war there.

"We'll succeed unless we quit," he said.

As Bush settles into Hanoi for a weekend summit focused on the Pacific Rim's economy and the North Korean nuclear threat, his determination to press ahead with the war in Iraq invited inevitable comparisons with the commitment that previous U.S. presidents made to the unpopular fight here in the 1960s and 1970s.

The death toll for Americans in Vietnam -- more than 58,000 -- ran far higher than the nearly 2,900 American casualties in Iraq so far. And the fighting that officially started with the arrival of American combat troops in Vietnam in 1965 lasted longer, especially considering that U.S. "advisers" had already worked and died there for years before that.

But both cases featured American presidents commanding troops in faraway and costly fights that eventually lost public support back home -- and insisting that leaving before the mission was accomplished invited disaster.

"We tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while," Bush said. Calling the Iraq war a "great struggle," he added, "It's just going to take a long period of time for the ideology that is hopeful -- and that is an ideology of freedom -- to overcome an ideology of hate."

He and first lady Laura Bush appeared to be moved by the journey to Hanoi and later Ho Chi Minh City, the southern city once known as Saigon.

As their motorcade moved through Hanoi, they passed Truc Bach lake, where McCain, then a young Navy pilot and now a Republican senator from Arizona and a possible candidate for president, parachuted from his damaged plane. McCain spent more than five years as a prisoner of war here, including a stint in a prison known as the Hanoi Hilton, which is now a museum.

It was "one of the most poignant moments of the drive," the president said.

"He was literally saved, in one way, by the people pulling him out," Bush said. But he did not mention that McCain's rescuers subsequently stabbed him in the foot with a bayonet and smashed his shoulder with a rifle butt.

Bush himself served as a pilot with the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, which became an issue in his 2000 election campaign.

Between meetings with the leaders of 21 nations and territories at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Bush took a break to answer questions, including one about his sentiments in courting ties with a former adversary.

"We were talking about how amazing it is that we're here in Vietnam," Bush said. "My first reaction is: History has a long march to it, and ... societies change and relationships can constantly be altered to the good."

Since embracing a market economy, Vietnam has spawned one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia, and Bush applauded his hosts at a state banquet after being greeted by President Nguyen Minh Triet at the colonial-era presidential palace.

"For decades, you had been torn apart by war," said Bush, who said nothing publicly about the country's one-party rule. "Today the Vietnamese people are at peace and seeing the benefits of reform."

Maintaining a positive tone required the president to say little, at least publicly, about one-party Communist Party rule or the treatment of dissidents. Nor did he try to argue that promoting economic ties with Vietnam would gradually loosen the party's grip. That was the argument that President Bill Clinton made for engagement with China in the 1990s and with Vietnam when he visited six years ago.

But it was the Iraq comparisons that were the most difficult, because they required Bush to argue that Vietnam turned out well despite America's withdrawal, and that the situation in Iraq is so much more complicated that retreat is not an option.

"The Maliki government is going to make it unless the coalition leaves before they have a chance to make it," he said of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "And that's why I assured the prime minister we'll get the job done."

While there has been much talk in Washington about the Bush administration charting a new course in Iraq since the midterm elections that handed Democrats control of Congress this month, the president suggested Friday that he had found his own meaning in the vote.

"The elections mean the American people want to know if we have a plan for success," Bush said. "We're not leaving until this job is done -- until Iraq can govern, sustain and defend itself."

This morning, Bush failed to win South Korea's support for a tough inspection program to intercept ships suspected of carrying supplies for North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles.

Bush sought to persuade South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to fully implement U.N. sanctions imposed on North Korea for testing nuclear weapons. He also sought Roh's support in the Proliferation Security Initiative, a voluntary international program that calls for stopping ships suspected of trafficking in weapons of mass destruction.

Roh said South Korea "is not taking part in the full scope" of the security initiative" but that it would "support the principles and goals of the